A star that shined for me

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It’s always a challenge to photograph nature, and the moon is certainly a part of that. Everyone at some time has looked at that giant orb shining in the sky.

In recent months I felt the urge to try my hand at photographing it. The simplest way is to record the moon up there alone, suspended in the dark. The hardest is to capture it with something in the foreground that can cause more visual impact.

This July 3 I had already identified a place where the moon would appear, so all I needed was that interesting foreground object. My chosen place was at the Pantheon of the Fatherland monument, in the political center of Brasilia between the Planalto presidential palace, the Supreme Court and Parliament.

When the moon appeared on the horizon some people pulled out their camera phones and pocket cameras to record the beauty of the moment. I had hoped to use these people in my image as a timeworn and simple photographic cliché, a silhouette. In this case, I hoped to put someone on the moon.

To the left of where I stood, I noticed a couple admiring the scene. The man was taller and began photographing the moon with his phone. At the same time, I started looking for a way to frame him with the moon in the background.

After my first few clicks, his companion approached and stood close behind him, facing me. I’m not sure if she used her own cell phone or a pocket camera, but as I was framing the scene through my viewfinder a bright light appeared from her hand. I realized that instead of facing the moon, she had decided to take a picture of the sunset and the buildings behind me.

Upon noticing this I quickly pressed my shutter, hoping to capture that “star light” before it disappeared. The light disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and after a few more minutes of trying other scenes, I left.

Back inside the photographer’s room of the presidential palace where I stored my laptop, I began to edit the pictures and was pleasantly surprised at the results. I was thrilled that apart from taking a nicer photo than I had planned, a star had shined for me that night.

Author Profile

Ueslei was born in Brasilia on September 2nd, the day Brazilians commemorate National Photojournalists Day. He studied advertising and publicity, and began working as freelancer for local newspapers in Brasilia, the national news magazine Istoé. He joined Reuters in 2010, covering mainly politics in the capital but also venturing into the country's northern and western states.